Gender has the same relation to nouns that
sex has to individuals, but while there are only two sexes, there are four
genders, viz., masculine, feminine, neuter and common. The masculine gender
denotes all those of the male kind, the feminine gender all those of the female
kind, the neuter gender denotes inanimate things or whatever is without life,
and common gender is applied to animate beings, the sex of which for the time being
is indeterminable, such as fish, mouse, bird, etc. Sometimes things which are
without life as we conceive it and which, properly speaking, belong to the
neuter gender, are, by a figure of speech called Personification, changed into
either the masculine or feminine gender, as, for instance, we say of the sun, He
is rising; of the moon, She is setting.
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